


something blue, old but new

by VerdantMoth



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Boys Kissing, Courtship, Jotunn Loki (Marvel), M/M, Pagan Loki, Past Child Abuse, Pining, Pining Thor (Marvel), Religion, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-17 22:27:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21550753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantMoth/pseuds/VerdantMoth
Summary: Thor stands there, bare chested as per usual, hair falling out of its braid. He’s holding Loki’s knife just a few inches above his hip, in between his thumb and two fingers. Thor grins at him, stupid and endearing.“Remarkable aim.” “Should you be here?” Loki demands.Thor tilts his head like he’s considering it. “I believe, when courting someone, getting to know them is part of the goal.” Loki stares at him, annoyed.
Relationships: Loki/Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 249
Collections: Thorki Big Bang 2019





	something blue, old but new

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to HJBender for the lovely portrait of these two dorks! Go shout at ‘em on tumblr!!

Loki is eleven his father’s guards take him to Asgard. He’s eleven, and still too small for his age, useless for anything but  _ this. _ “It’s the daughter’s job, to be traded like feed,” he hisses.

He earns a slap that sends him into the wall, but it’s worth it. “Do they know?” He asks, blue-green blood running down his cheek.

The guard eyes him, annoyed and ready to step on him if Loki so much as breaths wrong. “That it’s not a daughter you’re bringing for their son?”

The guard grins, a slow, icy spread that splits his face and bares broken fangs. “They requested it, little runtling. Seems the future King has a certain… proclivity, and they need someone they can, pass off.” The split grows, cavernous and full of rot.

Loki thinks,  _ I’m going to be sick _ .

And then he is. 

-

Asgard is-

It’s fucking beautiful. Loki hates it already. The sun is too bright, the green overwhelming. And it’s hot. So damn hot he sweats through the ink smeared across his face, marking him as Heir-Presumptive. 

He spits onto a shiny street, and earns a shove for his trouble. It’s gentle enough that he thinks his guard-slash-babysitter feels the same way. 

He  _ likes _ Gneip for this reason. Gneip finds the runtling amusing. Loki finds Gneip gentle and slow to hands. 

Gneip helps Loki paint on the bruises so the guard stays outside his door and above the ice of their home. “Please, Little Flake, be good.” 

Loki stares at his keeper, eyes wide and angry, “Would you be good if you were to be sold like the beast we eat?”

Gneip almost smiles. 

Almost, but he leans into Loki’s space. “Don’t you see, Little Flake? This is the safest option for you,” Gneip traces a thumb under a scar under Loki’s left eye. Loki’s skin ripples until it’s gone, at least from sight. Gneip tells him, “You cannot hide from me, Loki son of Laufey. And I cannot keep them from you forever.” He doesn’t say,  _ you haven’t grown in months _ , or  _ your father would see your head on a pike, if he could bear another son. _

“Did you arrange this?” Loki demands. 

Gneip smiles at him, broad and friendly and too bright like this abominable planet. “Now do you really think a low ranking Captain of the King’s Guard is smart enough for something like this?” 

“No,” Loki growls. “But I do think the guard who’s  _ kept _ himself from being Lead Captain of the King’s Guard for three decades without being  _ murdered _ , might be.” 

Gneip sighs and sinks to a knee. Even in his ridiculous Asgardian skin he’s so much bigger than Loki; even on a knee he towers over the young royalty. “I might feed your father information beneficial to him. If it has the added benefit of protecting you,” Gneip shrugs. “There’s nothing I would not do to protect my charge, even from his own father.” Gneip stands up and eyes this strange new place, with it’s greenery and its color and its heat. He takes off his furrs and crumples them into an elbow, skin shuddering between bland and blue. “Now come, Little Flake, and meet your Future.” 

Loki scowls, but he squares his shoulders and lifts his chin. Gneip’s furs cover their hands, where Loki clings tight, all of the fear in his body trembling in five tiny digits. “He better be beautiful,” Loki sulks. 

Gneip doesn’t smile at him, not physically. “I know your type, Princeling.” 

They walk the stretch of golden street, ignoring the whispers, up to great wooden doors that groan slowly open. 

Loki hesitates one step outside of his future, watching the dark inside warily. Gneip squeezes his hand gently, pulling him along. 

The doors sing shut quietly. 

-

He doesn’t get to meet his Future the first day. Mostly, the new King watches him cautiously and asks him to perform. Loki blinks, uncertainly, because he’s heard of Kings who like them young and smooth, but certainly Gneip would not…

Gneip winks at him. “Loki is particularly fond of a Midguardian form. A sleek little ball of fur.” 

And  _ oh _ . Lokie strips his shirt off, kicks his boot to the side. He doesn’t miss the amused smirk of the King, which makes Loki frown. He picks his boots up and folds his shirt on top of them. The Midgardian form is something that took a long time to perfect, because he’s only ever seen it as a sketch in a book smuggled to him by Gneip. 

It’s hard to perfect a creature whose skeleton hasn’t been carefully studied. Harder still to figure out how to walk when you don’t know where the muscles must be placed. But Loki, Loki solved the puzzle. 

He stretches lazily, feeling his spin shift, the pain of it shrinking, his skin retracting, his teeth moving. Black fur, blue in the right light, covers him, and he’s pleased to find this form is more… adaptive to the weather on this planet. He lands on his hands,  _ his paws _ , and stretches. He kneads the marble beneath his paws, claws scratching against it, and sniffs around. It smells different here. He sniffs, his chest doing that weird vibration thing that makes Gneip smile. 

“It’s not a particularly frightening form,” the King says from his stupid thrown. 

Loki grins as much as this beast can and stalks forward, growling and hissing, fangs on display. 

“Loki,” his guard warns quietly. 

Loki’s form huffs, not exactly the sigh he wants, but he veers away from the King and over to a guard. He stretches, belly to the floor and hips up and sticks out a claw,  _ just one Gneip, _ and drags it over the guard’s kneecap. 

Their blood is red, and smells like copper, which makes Loki sneeze back into himself. It’s fucking painful, and he hisses, curling into himself. 

Gneip throws the furs over him. “We’re still working on the back shift,” he tells the King. 

Loki looks up through the watery film over his eyes. The King is sitting up straighter, and looks mildly impressed. It’s not the same as the bored displeasure he usually sees in his father’s eyes, and something like pride almost wells up his throat. 

“Well,” the King says. “I think you’ll find plenty of time to practice while you stay here.” His eyes soften almost imperceptibly, like he knows… something. Something that makes Loki feel dirty, uncomfortable. 

He waves to a guard, a large hunk of Asgardian with a face that looks too young. “Guide the boy to his wing. His guard too.”

-

The Asgardian hunk doesn’t like Loki. 

Loki thinks,  _ same _ . Gneip chides him, constantly, about the small rat form he uses to climb up the leg of Volstagg to bite the soft flesh of his thigh. 

Loki thinks he’s lucky he hasn’t been stepped on, but being Heir-Presumptive has its perks. Being promised to an Heir-Apparent probably has better perks, but since Loki still hasn’t  _ met _ the Son-with-Proclivities, he can’t say. 

The King though, Odin, makes good on his promises to allow Loki unfiltered access to all things training and education. 

“This King, he has a surprisingly large accumulation of Jotun text,” Loki says casually. He’s been in this place for six months now, tormenting everyone but Odin and Gneip, both of whom seem immune to his particular lack of charm. 

Gneip grunts at him. He swings his legs low, ice cracking over the Asgardian skin and slicing at Loki’s calves. Blue-green blood drips down to the marble floor, and it’s almost pretty, the contrast. Loki lies on his back and kicks his ankles into the puddle. 

“How does this King speak our tongue so well?” He asks. 

Gneip holds out a hand to help Loki up. It’s a trick. He knows this, so he takes the offered hand and just as their skin makes contact, he lets his bones shatter and his skin curl. It’s a new form, one courtesy of the books the King has plied him with. Sleek, and despite his smaller frame, still entirely lethal. 

Fewer bones to break, too, as he curls his sleek body around Gneip’s wrist, up the sleeves of his tunic, around his throat. Loki cracks his jaws wide, fits them to Gneip’s jaw and presses just enough that Gneip taps out somewhere around his belly. 

“I don’t like this form,” Gneip says. His laughter still rings out though, bouncing off the ceilings a million years tall. 

Loki lets his bones reform and his skin shift. He keeps the eyes though. They’re useful. “I adore it.” 

Gneip sighs, mumbles something in the Asgard tongue under his breath. Then he points at Loki. “The death of me, Flake, that’s what you are!”

Loki narrows his eyes. “You didn’t add ‘little’ this time?” 

Gneip says, “Asgard’s food must sit well in your belly. You’re growing again.” 

It’s true. Loki’s furs no longer drag at his feet. Now they stop halfway to his calves. He’s still skinny, skinny enough that Volstagg says his ribs would make terrible picks for his teeth. 

Loki doesn’t like this discussion. “Teach me to speak their tongue.” 

Gneip narrows his eyes. He dresses himself in a robe of ice, sharp icicles curving over his shoulders and from his wrist, ready to flay skin from bone. “Why.” 

“Because if I am to one day stand beside their King as a glorified play thing, I should at least know what they say about me,” Loki snarks. 

Gneip frowns, ice recinfing into a smooth pillow. As smooth as ice can be, anyway. “You will be more than a trophy at his side, Loki.” 

“Yes,” the boy sighs, throwing himself to the marbled floor. He lands on Gneip’s furs which somehow end up beneath him, ruining his dramatics. “I’m a bargaining chip. So much better.”

“It is,” Gneip insist. “And besides, you aren’t a bargaining chip.” Loki gives him a look that could melt his second skin, so he raises his hands. “Okay, you aren’t  _ just _ a bargaining chip. The Princling chose you,” Gneip admits. 

“He chose me?” Loki asks. “He  _ chose _ me?” Loki screams. “This, this stupid boy who steals my future because I can change my skin, who my father sells me to in order to buy a peace that won’t last, this stupid oaf who won’t even come see me?” Loki is a little afraid of the liquid on his cheeks, so he wipes it away angry, wiping it into the furs he lays in. “I am a trophy the Prince is ashamed of, so what do I care for his choices?” 

Gneip lays beside him, and Loki allows himself this one, small comfort, of curling into his guard’s ribs. Gneip drapes his arms around the tiny child, holding him the way no one ever holds Loki. “You will see, my Little Flake. This is a good future for you, much better than bleeding on your father’s floor, every time his blood warms up.”

“Were you ever stripped of your choice and sold into an alliance?” Loki demands, voice muffled and sleepy.

Gneip says nothing, and sometimes he feels guilty for not teaching Loki all that the red ink and scars truly mean. He doesn’t answer, and Loki, allowed this brief moment to be a  _ child, _ sleeps between his arm and his chest. 

-

Loki wakes Gneip up by slamming a small fist into his shoulder. “Is Ymir punishing me?” he demands. It’s dark out, the stars twinkling cruelly.

Gneip lets the ice thicken, and tries to drift back into the long black of slumber. 

“If Ymir punishes me, then you will soon join,” Loki says, all snotty nosed and sass. 

Gneip leans up on an elbow, tired. “I fought in wars that lasted decades, and got more sleep than you allow me, Princling.”

Loki’s blue skin turns purple, the only sign of the guilt he feels, so Gneip rolls out of bed. Odin has learned to keep their wing of the castle colder, and he wraps his furs around his large frame. “I have two questions for you, Princling.” Loki flinches and it surprises Gneip. “Why is Ymir punishing you, and how?” 

Loki kicks at the floor, stirring the large rugs that keep appearing at their door. “We have ignored our duties, denied Ymir sacrifices.” 

It feels wrong to slaughter a field beast here. They’re beautiful in a way they aren’t at home. “And the how?” Gneip prods gently. 

“A year and a half, I’ve been here. And I never meet the Future, and I never go home,” Loki grumbles. 

“Your Promised is busy,” Gneip chides. “And you don’t  _ want _ to go home.” 

“Truth,” Loki tells him. “Home holds nothing.”

He still manages to look like a drowned rodent, and Gneip lets out a groan just to watch the windows frost over, rattle. “Come, Flake. Ymir’s sacrifices do not need to be drenched in blood to be honored.” 

Of the boy’s concerns, this is the only one he can fix. 

Loki shuffles at the end of his bed.

“What is wrong?”

“We have nothing to offer,” his charge says, downcast and eyes lowered. 

Gneip frowns. “I, had not considered this.” It’s true though, when he thinks about it. In their time here they’re well provided for. But as far as personal effects, they did not bring many, and they have accumulated fewer. He stares at the rugs, finely crafted with stitches worthy of a King. 

Or a god. “I think, Princling,” he says with pride, “that your courtship has begun under our noses.”

Loki gives him the look, the one that out freezes ice. Gneip waves his hand at the floor. “Ymir has never had such finery bestowed before.”

Loki studies the rugs. “Floor coverings.” He looks uncertain, but he bends and starts digging through them, studying the art. His brows furrow, contemplating. 

“Princling?”

“Look,” Loki says, voice quiet and awe laced. “Look at this,” he whispers. “The story of our People.” Loki begins lying the rugs side by side and Gneip stands above him. He’s right. 

Gneip frowns and snatches one away. “Good. You can tell Ymir the history of your people as offering. Show Ymir why you are worthy.”

Loki lols read to argue with him so Gneip says, “Have you been practicing your Asgardian covering?”

Loki’s skin ripples too easily into the pale covering. Gneip shivers and shifting greenbluestormred eyes pin him. 

Gneip jerks his head and Loki drapes furs over himself. “I hate this covering. It feels naked.”

-

There’s not an altar for Ymir. Which, makes sense, mostly. But there is an altar that’s not designated to any god. Loki walks towards it, pretending he can't hear the whispers. Pretending his future subjects aren’t staring at him with a mixture of sympathy and fear. 

He’s grown some, since he’s been here. The food agrees with him in a way food never has before. But he can’t  _ not _ notice how small he is, still. 

At least his bland skin fits. It doesn’t ache like some of the forms do. 

Perhaps because he doesn’t change more than his skin. The eyes are weird, but they enjoy the sun more. 

So it’s not the worst. 

It’s not the best either. 

But he walks up to the stone structure and lays the first of the rugs.  _ Tapestries, _ he thinks suddenly, guiltily.  _ They’re tapestries. _

He speaks quietly, in his native tongue and he doesn’t miss the way they hiss. “Ymir. It’s been a while. I apologize.”

Volstagg snorts, even though he can’t possibly know what Loki is saying. Gneip grips his shoulder, and Loki’s slips the knives he hid back into their sheaths. “Ignore the brute. He doesn’t understand.” 

Loki sighs, fingers tracing silver and gold threads. “I do not know the rules of sacrifice, but Gneip says you will not begrudge us the lack of blood. I pray you will not begrudge us borrowed goods. If my Guard is to be believed, my Future procured these.” Loki frowns harder. “He can’t be all bad, Ymir, if he can find our history on something so beautiful, can understand its significance?”

He wiped a hand under his nose, feels his shoulders tremble. Volstagg moves towards him, but Gneip steps between them, shielding him. At makes him angry, his skin shifting blue. “I do not understand Ymir, have I displeased you? Is that why you see fit to banish me here?”

“You should not speak so cruelly to your god,” a voice says. In  _ his _ tongue. Loki whirls around, crouched low and ready to strike. 

As far as Asgardians go, this one is almost pretty. More so than the guard they’re stuck with. 

He’s older than Loki, by how much, Loki cannot parse out. He’s bigger though, by a lot. He towers over him, shoulders broad and the beginnings of a spectacular beard already gracing his face. His hair is braided in the warriors’ fashion and he’s sweaty. 

“It’s rude to interrupt an offering,” Loki tells him. 

The boy shrugs. “It’s unseemly for a King to use a foreign tongue amongst his subjects.”

Loki bares his fangs, and it’s only Gneip’s arm across his waist that keeps Loki from lunging. “Princling. Meet your Promised.”

Loki’s world tilts as he stares at the boy. “I expected the God of Thunder to be less… full of sunshine,” he says. 

“Ah!” The boy says in his own tongue. “So you’ve heard of me!”

Loki narrows his eyes. “Of course I have. It’s important to know your…”

“I do hope you aren’t about to say ‘enemies,’ because you’d break my heart before you had the chance to earn it,” he grins, too bright and overly excited. He sticks a meaty hand in Loki’s face and says, “Thor, son of Odin.”

Loki sticks his own hand out, the deep blue a sharp contrast to the golden skin. “Loki, son of Laufey.”

Thor brings Loki’s knuckles to his lips and Loki knows his skin is darkening. He hates this boy already. “I must return now. Lessons.”

He’s off, skin stretching painfully until wings form and he can flit over the heads of these people, running from his shame. 

He can hear Thor’s laughter as he soars, not mocking just amused, and him saying, “Splendid!” 

Loki thinks he should’ve taken back the tapestry. And then he flies over a child, small and shivering even in the sun and thinks,  _ maybe Ymir will grant it to this child. _

-

Loki spends most of his evenings flying through the stars after that, searching for constellations he recognizes. Sometimes he drops small fruits and stolen breads before unsuspecting peoples. He never admits that to anyone. 

Gneip bullies him into meals and lessons and all manner of education, but he cannot bully him out of their haven during the day. 

“I’m not afraid,” Loki snarls. He’s grown into his shoulders, his hips. 

His voice has dropped, finally, and Gneip has begun the ritual of carving his heritage into his skin, of inking the story of his people in bright red along his shoulders, his jaw. 

“You sacrifice at night, like a criminal. You walk with your shoulders hunched among people you are meant to rule. Thor request your presence and you mock him.”

Loki lounges on his bed, skin rippling with growing ice. He’s still perfecting this on the Asgardian skin. “This skin doesn’t like the cold.” 

His guard frowns. He doesn’t challenge Loki’s conversation swerve though, which is something. “This is why you must perfect it. You should in every form. It’s an extra layer of protection. One most enemies won’t be prepared to challenge.” 

Loki says, “I don’t think I need to worry about my safety, considering where I stay and what I am.” 

He says it in that voice that makes Gneip wish he was still small. Still young enough to take comfort in Gneip’s arms. He settles for ruffling his long dark hair. “You are Heir-Apparent, Promised of the Future of Asgard.” 

“I am a trophy who doesn’t even earn a place on the walls of the grand hall,” Loki whispers. 

“You do that to yourself.” 

Loki hears a door slam, and he flops onto his belly, angry, itchy in his own skin. He hates this putrid place. 

He slings his fist at the wall, listens as the knife hits its mark. 

“You shouldn’t damage the property of those who treat you so well,” he hears. 

Loki throws his arm out, hears the snick of the obsidian blade in the air, but he doesn’t hear it hit his mark. That makes him sit up, because he  _ never _ misses. 

Thor stands there, bare chested as per usual, hair falling out of its braid. He’s holding Loki’s knife just a few inches above his hip, in between his thumb and two fingers. Thor grins at him, stupid and endearing. “Remarkable aim.”   
“Should you be here?” Loki demands. 

Thor tilts his head like he’s considering it. “I believe, when courting someone, getting to know them  _ is _ part of the goal.”    
Loki stares at him, annoyed. “Do you ‘get to know’ all the cattle you purchase?”

Thor shrugs, then stalks towards the bed. Loki brings his knees to his chest, skin rippling back to his blue. It makes Thor pause, but he’s not-

He’s not frightened like Loki hoped. He looks, almost intrigued. Then he regains his bearings and continues to hunt Loki like he’s prey. “I think you might be surprised to find that here in Asgard, Kings don’t oversee the purchase of their own cattle.”

Loki bristles at the hidden insult, but he just says, “I suppose that’s why your beasts are so lacking.”

He gets that booming laughter for his troubles, and bites his cheeks until he taste blood to keep from smiling. 

“Come Loki Laufeyson, Heir-Presumptive of Jotunheim-” 

Loki cuts him off. “Didn’t you hear? It’s Heir-Apparent now.”

Thor curls his lips at that. “Most heirs don’t sound quite as bitter about that.” 

Loki leans up and forward, lets himself fall onto his palms and lean into the space Thor’s invading. “I think you’ll find, Future,” he says and looks up through his lashes, “I’m not like most boys you meet.” 

His skin ripples and his bones reform themselves and it mostly doesn’t hurt as he sinks into a tiny little fly he saw once. 

He’s got the pleasure of watching Thor faceplant into his sheets, and he enjoys the ass wrapped in tight leather. Thor rolls over, laughing. “Loki, my Promised. You should join me.” 

He doesn’t say where, just leaves, surprisingly silent for a man his size. 

-

Thor is everywhere, after. When Loki follows Gneip to the warm springs. When they spar in the rooms after the warriors leave. 

When Loki slips out of the window and goes to offer and pray at the unnamed altar. 

He’d be angry about that, but he has noticed that the altar seems to be untouched, between his visits. It’s nice, because Ymir deserves a dedicated altar. The bowl of food he sets out, and the tapestries do vanish. Loki decides to believe that is Ymir’s doing. Later, when he passes those who call the street home, and sees the edges of his peoples’ history around their shoulders, he assumes Ymir has bless whatever his future in this place is. 

He doesn’t tell that to Thor. “Don’t you have someone else to haunt?”

“Haven’t you been asked to speak the native language?” Thor smiles at him, blinding and sweaty. 

He’s  _ always _ sweaty and smiling. Loki’s thought to peer in his rooms while he sleeps, to confirm the “always” part, but Odin’s halls are many and he’s not figured out which one is Thor’s. He’s only been looking a few turns of their moon. 

He switches to Thor’s native tongue. “I would, if the lumbering oaf interrupting my worship spoke it.” 

Thor shrugs. “Are you almost done here?”

“Why.” 

Thor leans over his shoulder, a strange, spicy musk filling Loki’s nose. “I thought you might dine with me.”

“Not hungry.” 

Something ghost over Loki’s ribs. He stiffens, tense and alert, ready to strike. 

“When you came, you were little, with bones like a babe’s. You’ve grown, in the last seven years, but you are still small.”  _ Delicate _ , he doesn’t say. “You eat, like you’re afraid to show you’re hungry, like you worry the food will be snatched from your lips.”

“Once it might have been,” Loki admits quietly. The confession startles them both, Loki especially because it slipped out unbidden.

Thor’s hand lands on his ribs, clenches so that Loki can feel the heat radiating from his palm. “Now you do not have to worry. Eat with me. Bring your skulking guard too.”

Loki jerks, and sees Gneip hiding in the shadows. “Have you always done that?” he demands. 

Gneip eyes the heirs and shrugs. “You should eat, Princeling. First meal was before sunrise.” 

Thor sucks in a breath and Loki cuts his eyes at him. “You two go ahead, let me finish my prayers.” He gently lays a tapestry down, delicate blue edges draping over the stone. 

He hears them leave and he sighs, tracing the icey stitches, sweat curling down his neck. He doesn’t miss Jotunheim. Not exactly, but he’s tired of sweating. “That is why I hide,” he tells Ymir. “For no other reason.”

-

Dinner is…

Unpleasant. The food is good, the entertainment expensive, the company, unbearable. 

Odin and Frigga dote on Thor like he’s a babe squawking for milk. Volstagg, Loki’s old shadow, practically laps at the puddles Thor leaves behind him. Gneip seems to enjoy the raucous conversation, and Loki has a sneaking suspicion that Gneip has done this before. 

“Loki,” he’s pulled from his thoughts and forced to stare down the King who bought him. He wants to ask how much he’s worth, but Laufey might’ve traded him for dust and fire. 

“Loki?” Odin repeats. 

“Hmm?” 

The king frowns, and Loki knows his sulking is going to be rewarded with bruises later. “I asked how you’ve adjusted to this place? We haven’t seen you much.” 

Loki spears fruit onto his fork, into his mouth. “I find it interesting.” 

It’s quiet and he looks around, unsure of what else they want from him. “It’s nice,” he adds. “Bright. Friendly. Overly so, in some cases,” he says, looking at Thor. 

Thor just grins. He’s not sweaty, which answers that question. 

“We’d like it if you spent more time with Thor, more time out in public,” Frigga says gently. Odin looks like he wants to speak  _ less _ gently, but then there’s a thud beneath the table and his eyes water. 

Loki thinks for a second, off balance and wary. 

“You can stay blue,” Thor says. Odin immediately scoffs. 

“No, son, he can’t.” 

And just like that, they’re arguing, Thor and Odin two storms bursting in a small hall and Frigga a quiet whispering wind. 

Loki lets the Asgard-bland wash over him, trades for the bluegreenstorm eyes. “I can wear your colors,” he says. 

It’s quiet after that, and Loki knows he should feel bad about the tension, but he eats chilled fruit and smiles into his lap and slinks back to his room at the first chance. 

Gneip is not amused by his tricks, but he says nothing as they part ways at the door to the bedrooms. 

-

Loki lands on his back, breath knocked from his lungs. He leans over, spitting onto the floor, the faintest traces of blue in the saliva. He can’t remember the last time he took a beating like this; before Asgard though, for sure.    
“I have a surprise for you,” Gneip tells him. 

“Must be good if you use the home tongue to tell me about it,” Loki replies. 

“And here I thought this was your home!” Thor’s voice rings out. 

Loki rolls onto his stomach and lifts himself onto his elbows. “Oh no,” he groans. 

“Oh yes,” Gneip says as he makes his exit. 

Thor strips his shirt off and he’s  _ sweaty _ again. 

“This is  _ your  _ planet,” Loki says. “You should be accustomed to the heat.” 

Thor smiles at him, “Oh, I am. But the sweat seems to make most people more pleasant to talk to.” 

Loki hops up, then crouches into a striking position. 

“Besides, Princeling, you seem well accustomed to our heat.” Thor takes a similar stance. He makes it look lazy somehow. 

Loki strikes first, shifting halfway through the air, biting his pain into Thor’s forearm. Thor grabs the tail of his sleek body, frowning. “I think I should be glad you learned how to keep the venom at bay.” 

Loki bites harder, bites until red blood runs across his tongue. He hates the way their blood taste. He shifts, back into his Jotun form and Thor leers at him. 

“Never seen a naked Frost Giant?” Loki spits. 

“Sure I have. Usually they’re bigger,” Thor says. He swings a fist out, lands it against Loki’s ribs. “Interestingly enough though, they’re usually a bit smaller down there.” 

He has no shame, and Loki half hates that clothing rarely makes it through a shift. 

His brain is a little more on track than his pride though. “You’ve seen Frost Giants? In person?” 

Thor shrugs. “Well, yeah. Most of Asgard’s finest warriors have.” 

“Is that where you learned my language?” Loki asks, intrigued. 

Thor swings again, but Loki is quicker this time, stepping back and to the left. “It’s important to know how to speak to those you desire,” Thor tells him. 

The young god radiates a level of seriousness that scratches at Loki. He strikes, quickly and repeatedly, knives in hands. Its cheating, dirty, but he’s not sorry. He manages three strikes on the smooth skin of Thor’s right bicep before he’s slammed into the mat. 

“It also helps to know the tongue of your enemy,” Loki says, “so you can spy on them.”

All humor is gone from Thor’s eyes. 

He’s still smells like spice and musk, which is an annoying factor that Loki’s brain finds tantalizing. Thor doesn’t seem to notice Loki’s conflict. “Do you know your own history, Loki Laufeyson?”

Loki furrows his brows. “What does my history have to do with anything?” 

Thor leans off of him, frown marring his unfortunately handsome face. “You should probably look into that, Laufeyson. Know what you’re  _ really _ marrying into.” 

Thor eases off of him, leaving Loki sweaty in the wrong way, skin itchy and too tight, no matter what form or color he takes it. Thor leaves, but not before saying, “Picking you  _ was _ my choice. But there were outstanding factors that made you more desirable than others. Not just those pretty eyes. Plus, it was a matter of safety.”

-

Loki stalks about his room. Gneip isn’t back yet. It’s annoying, because Loki has questions. It’s worrying, because Gneip never misses a chance to torment him before bed.

Loki stalks to the other bedroom, bangs on the heavy door. 

Nothing. 

He slinks down into a form that grosses him out, and crawls under the door. Gneip’s room is dark still, his bed untouched. Loki cracks back into his regular form, stretching the ache from his muscles. He’s going to really feel it tomorrow. He steals one of the larger man’s furs, tucks it tight around him and snoops. 

Loki didn’t know Gneip could draw, but Loki finds scrolls with dark sketches. Like Gneip used the ashes of a fire to make them. 

It takes him far too long to recognize the history on the parchment. The same one from the cloth they used to find at their stoop. There’s something different though, something beyond the lack of gentle threads or color. 

He can’t quite figure out what it is though, and he’s pretty sure most of those tapestries are long gone.

The door creaks behind him, and Loki stiffens. He doesn’t turn though, because that’s an admission of guilt. 

“Kings might never be guilty, but Princelings still owe their Guard privacy.” 

“Guards owe Princelings honesty,” Loki says. 

“About?” his guard asks. 

“Thor, Son of Odin, seems to think I don’t know my own history,” Loki says calmly. He flips an obsidian blade. “But he can’t be right. Because I have a trusted Guard who has taught me everything I need to know about Jotunheim and my heritage.” 

Loki spins, lazy and disinterested. “I mean, he’s been carving that heritage into my skin since I was 12. Nine years is plenty of time to spill any secrets he might have, right?” 

Gneip doesn’t look rattled, which is annoying, but doesn’t deter Loki. 

“You’ve never entirely explained to me what all of these mean, Gentle Giant,” Loki says. He’s angry, at how wet his voice is. Angry at the secrets that are being kept. Angry that the boy who’s father bought him knows those secrets. 

He’s angry at how much he doesn’t want to find out these secrets. 

“There are some things you are not ready to know,” Gneip tells him. 

Loki throws a knife. “I get to decide,” he yells, “what I am ready to know.” 

Gneip avoids the blade, but he says, “So asks.” 

Therein lies Loki’s problem. He doesn’t know what to ask. “What could Thor possibly mean about ‘outstanding factors’ that made me more desirable than other choices. Because I was under the impression it had more to do with bits of me that have nothing to do with my bloodline and everything to do with where my blood lines up.” 

Gneip sighs, sits down hard like he’s one of the grey-hairs ready for their final battle. “Do you remember the markings of anyone from Jotunheim?”

Loki thinks, studies the markings on Gneip. “Enough,” he hedges. He glances at the sketches, traces some of the lines on the people in them. “Enough to know there is some difference to mine.” 

“Yes. Are you smart enough to figure out what that difference might indicate?” 

Loki sits on Gneip’s bed. “I barely understand what they mean, much less what differences might indicate.” 

“You should pay attention to our lessons, Princeling. Tell me what you know.” 

Loki stares at his guard, frustrated. “Heritage, bloodlines. Families and battles.” 

Gneip nods. He traces some lines over Loki’s brows, then the branches over Loki’s torso he knows so well. “Have you ever wondered why you’re able to shift between this skin and the other so easily? Why the food here seems to settle on your bones without problem?” 

Loki kicks at the floor. “You have a weak stomach, Gneip.”

“I don’t,” Gneip snaps. “Take this seriously, Little Flake.”

Loki flinches away from that. 

“Why are you so small, Loki? We are known as ‘Frost Giants’ in most of the realms and yet there are boys here bigger than you.” 

“Just say what you know, Captain,” Loki growls. “Stop with your games and your implications and speak plainly to me.”

Gneip sighs. Loki watches him send a prayer to Ymir, then feels the full weight of a glare that almost feels caringly. Fatherly. “Loki, you must feel it, here.” He taps Loki’s chest. “Some part of you  _ must know  _ what you are.”

“And what is that?” Loki demands through clenched teeth. 

Gneip cuts his eyes to the floor. “Figure it out, Loki. Find me when you’re ready to hear this. Now leave. I’m tired.” 

Loki storms out, but not before he knocks the sketches off of the table.

-

Loki makes it a point to seek Thor out, after. He attends events with him, and he watches the way Thor is around the people he will lead. The Future-King is surprisingly carefree and gentle, given his father’s more suspicious nature. He smiles and laughs.

Everyone seems to love him.    
Loki hasn’t seen one person so much as scowl at the oaf’s back when he passes by. It’s annoying. Certainly Loki can’t be the only one aggravated by the God of Thunder’s sunny disposition. 

He likes watching Thor with the children, though. Because his boisterous laughter and overwhelming jubilance are softer. Quieter. He gets down on his knees, pulls Loki beside him and he listens to all manner of nonsensical babble and storytelling. He grins with his whole face, but it’s not the smile of a King buying his subject’s loyalty. That’s the smile of a King who  _ cares _ about his people. 

It’s unsettling. A little disgusting. Loki stands and dust his knees and pretends not to stare at the sweaty planes of Thor’s back. But he makes it a point to drop coins and sweets and fruits from his pockets for these people.

“What was my price?” Loki surprises them both later, when they’re walking through a large crowd trying to find the quiet path back to Odin’s hall. 

“Not here,” Thor tells him. 

Loki grabs at his shoulder, but Thor slaps his hand away. Loki rubs the forming bruise. 

“Not here, Jotun.”

So he quietly skulks around as Thor peruses the sweets at the market, buys too much fruit just to hand it out to every dirt coated youngling with a tear to spare. 

Thor leads them back to his own room, where he strips down and begins to wipe himself off. “You asks interesting questions, Frostbite,” Thor tells him. 

Loki glares, but it doesn’t seem to pierce the golden skin. “You have as many answers as I expected from sunshine and braids.” 

Thor spins, gleeful and uncaring of his nudity. “So you find me sunny!” 

“What did you guys pay for the honor of my company?” Loki asks. 

“Shouldn’t you ask your father that?” Thor flips back onto his bed, head pillowed against his arms. 

Loki traces the trail of curls on his stomach, down down  _ down _ , “Have some decency. And in case you’ve missed it, I haven’t been home since I was too young to ask something like that.” 

“This is your home also, Loki Laufeyson,” Thor says quietly. Quiet in that way that says he’s finally stopped playing games and he’s serious. 

Loki waves a hand. “It will be, when you’re ready to ascend the throne and make me your bride.”

“Who is to say I don’t want to be the blushing doll at your side?” Thor smirks. Then he adds, “Asgard was your home long before your father accept our offer.”

“Does no one on this blasted planet speak plainly?” Loki hisses. 

“Can you not see the truth when it’s laid at your feet?” Thor says back. He hops up, and Loki glances away. Thor is  _ kind _ enough to step into linen pants, which could be thicker. “You are smart, Loki. You find your way into places you don’t belong and you’re a quick study.”

Loki hates the way his beige-coat blushes, but Thor waves a hand. “I’ve seen you places you shouldn’t be, seen how quickly you find a way to blend into a crowd, to disappear.”

Loki sneers, because he doesn’t like that he’s been found out.

“But fine, you want to know what your price-tag was?” There’s a cruel gleam in Thunder’s eyes. One that makes Loki wish to take his questions back, to turn heel and leave, head high. But he’s proud, so he lifts his chin and squares his shoulders. “Nothing. You were a gift, a peace offering.” 

“Impossible,” Loki hisses. 

Thor steps into his space, because that’s what he does. He backs Loki into the wall, leans down so his face is right in Loki’s and so that his lashes brush Loki’s “You were a stain Jotunheim couldn’t afford, and a bargaining chip Asgard couldn’t resist. How many Halflings from our people do  _ you _ know of?”

“Impossible,” Loki repeats, sliding down the wall. 

Thor shrugs and leans forward. “You should leave, Halfling. Wouldn’t do to be caught in my chambers past your bedtime.”

-

Loki doesn’t flee. In part, because he’s yet to find a place on this blasted planet far enough away, and in part because he’s not sure where else he could run. Even Ymir’s alter seems too obvious, too open. 

He does hide though. 

He picks the form he showed the King first, small enough to disappear into alleys, and adaptive enough to survive the climate. Plus, people will scratch behind his ears and no one whispers behind his back.

Currently, he’s curled on the porch of a family who don’t mind him, the son filling a bowl with warm milk and sneaking him bites of sharp cheese. Has been for a few weeks now.

People talk freely in front of a sleeping kit, but so far no one has said anything worth remembering. 

The boy comes home, smelling of ink and parchment, and he squats down to stroke the soft fur of Loki’s back. There’s a bruise fading under this eyes, and a dried cut on his lip. Too healed to have been earned in the hours since he left this house. He tries to wiggle his fingers against Loki’s belly, so Loki nips him gently. The kid sighs. “Looks like you and I get to extra spend time together today,” the boy tells him with a heavy sigh. But he pulls out a package that smells like heaven and wiggles it in front of Loki’s tiny nose. “It’s okay though, they gave me smoked meat.” 

Loki’s ears flick and he stretches, chest low and tail high. “Mreow?”

The kid shrugs. “People are worried. The adults talk as if I can’t hear them.” He leans down conspiratorial. “Prince Thor’s promised has gone missing, and he’s not taking it well. And everyone in the castle thinks the Jotun Captain must’ve smuggled the boy back home, only that can’t really be true.”

He breaks of a piece of the meat and feeds it to Loki, who finds that as nice as this form is, the teeth are surprisingly maladapted for chewing the peppery meat. Still, the flavor is heaven and a little extra chewing won’t kill him.

He butts his head against the kid’s knee, thirsty. The kid pours milk into the stone dish. “Anyway. No way the Captain took the Jotun back to Jotunheim. ‘Cause they don’t want him. See, apparently, the Prince told the Jotun that he wasn’t actually Jotun,” the kid pauses head tilting into the shadowy light that darkens the mark under his eye. “Well, he is, but he isn't. He’s both. I don’t know why it matters. Jotun is pretty, and when he thinks no one is looking he is kind, but none of this matters. He barely leaves his room and he won’t try with the Prince.”

The kid pulls Loki into his lap which is disgruntling and demeaning, but he settles in for the fingers stroking down his back. “He should though, try with the Prince. Because the Prince was happy to pick anyone they offered him. But then he heard... something. I don’t know. Something about what would happen to the Runted Halfling in Jotun and then he  _ fought _ until the King and Queen agreed to let him marry the Jotun Prince. Which was like, kind of huge because they made the Prince earn the uhm,” the kid struggles with a word. “The cost? I dunno there’s a fancy word when you pay for the person you marry. The Prince gave up something special. No one knows what, but the Prince did it and the King and the Queen brought the Jotun boy here and then he hurt the Prince’s feelings.”

There’s a ruckus from the house that startles the boy, and he knocks Loki off his lap. “I gotta go, so should you.” 

Inside the yelling gets louder, and Loki hesitates as the boy opens the door. He tries to shoo Loki away, and Loki purrs and butts against his ankle, avoiding the angry red flesh peeking from too short trousers. Loki knows that kind of yelling, and he’s suddenly afraid to leave this kid alone, suddenly all to aware of the out of season sleeves and the stiffness with which he moves. The kid disappears through the door though, leaving Loki abandoned on the steps with too much to think about and questions he doesn’t want to answer. 

-

He makes it back to Odin’s Hall in the form of a kitten, but something about the eyes of King’s men on him make him uncomfortable. His skin ripples into a new form, one he’s not taken before and it  _ aches _ . Still small, almost kit like, with tiny wings comprised of downy feathers, bristly fur, and an elongated snout. He likes the fangs though, needle like, he could do without the talons, as they make it hard to walk. 

They’re  _ painful _ and he thinks it’s because he’s not used to them, not used to the way it makes his muscles stretch. 

Theses wings sit differently then a regular air rat’s, too, and he can’t quite make them fly. By the time he makes it to Thor’s room, he’s exhausted and sore, and that strange musk-spice smell is intoxicating. 

He climbs up the silky sheets, and his talons finally prove useful. They can bill him for the rips in the sheets.

The thought makes him laugh, which he’s pleasantly surprised to find out comes as a bubbly chirp in this form. 

He curls up in a pillow that most likely needs to be washed, pungent with Thor’s scent and shockingly warm. This creature likes warm even more than the Midgardian beast. 

He doesn’t mean to fall asleep though, which is why he’s startled when the door booms against the wall. 

This body handles surprise about as well as his normal form, full body flinch that results in a strange chirrup noise. Thor glances up briefly, sees him, and Loki freezes. Most of him freezes, stupid downy wings fluttering. 

Thor blinks, and then, like he’s  _ used _ to finding strange things on his pillow, continues to storm around. “Little Runtling just takes off. Doesn’t he  _ know _ how dangerous it is? Doesn’t he get everything I’ve  _ done _ to make him comfortable? To protect him?”

There’s a static energy radiating off him, tiny little sparks that crack in Loki’s ridiculous wings. Thor isn’t yelling. Not the way Loki expected, the way he’s used to.

Thor is a silent fury, that strange energy before…

Thor slings his fist into the wall, and it echoes and Loki thinks, Thor is the pause right _before_ the  thunder . 

The room lights up, and Loki doesn’t know if there’s a storm outside, or if it came from the strange flashes growing about Thor’s shoulders or screeching in his eyes. Loki studies him, this Future bought and paid for and he hates the form he took because when he notices Thor shaking, tiny little earthquake tremors, his throat vibrates in a weird almost-purr. Like he’s underwater or there’s a pebble caught in his throat. 

Thor turns at the noise, bits of the wall still crumbling to the floor and blood dripping between sunburned knuckles. He studies Loki, and then sighs, falling into the sheets. He picks Loki up, which is as deemening in this form as the Midgardian, but Thor is surprisingly gentle. Loki can still feel the energy radiating off him, the strange worry crackling in his feathers. But Thor is so careful as he strokes two fingers down his back, cradles Loki against his chest.

Loki realises he is sweaty and shirtless again, but he finds he can’t be annoyed because he smells nice and he’s  _ warm _ . He makes his pebble-purr noise again, lighter and more satisfied. Thor sniffs, and Loki looks at him, eyes squinting against the light. 

Future has his eyes shut, his whole face scrunched. His shoulders are shaking too, but he’s somehow contained it to  _ just _ his shoulders, his jaw. 

_ He’s crying _ , Loki suddenly realises, horrified. 

“I’m trying,” Thor whispers, broken and wet and desperate. “Can’t Loki see? Can’t he  _ see _ how hard I’m trying. I do this for him. Everything, it’s all for him and he won’t even  _ look _ at me!” He opens his eyes, great cavernous pools of the darkest blue, and Loki swears he can see grey clouds bursting with electricity in them. Thor stares into his eyes, and Loki wonders what color the creatures eyes are. Did they turn green or red, or stay blue?

Thor curls on his side, carefully cradling Loki in his elbow and he weeps. “I cannot help him if he does not let me in. But I do not get it, is he not desperate? Not lonely? Does he not need comfort?”

He strokes Loki’s wings which does the best sort of thing to this form but just makes Loki really uncomfortable and… itchy warm. 

“Are the Jotun really so cold that Loki would prefer to hide away in his dark shadows forever than even try with me? Or am I so horrible, so unbearable?” 

Loki’s form ripples, and he thinks, cruelly, it’s almost a blessing that Thor’s tears blurr his eyes. Because he almost wants to tell him the truth, to stand up and let Thor know it’s not…

Loki blinks, distressed underwater purr squeaking out of him. He  _ likes _ Thor, he realizes, suddenly and sickeningly. Thor sniffs, buries his large face between the wings. “Perhaps he knows who his mother is, and he is shamed,” the god mumbles. 

Loki perks up, but Thor just sighs, curls a little tighter and says, “I will find him. I  _ will _ bring him home,” before falling into a troubled slumber.

Loki cannot escape the large arm, not without taking a smaller form, but he can’t bring himself to even try. For the first time since he outgrew Gneip’s arms, he feels safe, warm. 

Cared for. 

Wrapped in the spicy, warm musk of his future, Loki sleeps, fully and dreamless for the first time in perhaps forever. An almost forgotten lullaby echoes about the edges of his consciousness and he swears Ymir whispers to him but he knows not the words. 

-

He wakes, and it's dark outside. Thor’s hold has loosened enough that he is able to slip from the warm embrace and slink to the floor. He clacks across the floor and out the door, and then shifts, bones crunching and skin stretching and everything  _ aching _ deeply. It takes him a moment to get his bearings, to remember how his two legs move after time in the other forms, but he makes his way silent to the rooms he shares with Gneip. 

His guard’s door is shut tight, no sound from within. Loki goes to his own furs, collapses into them. He should dress he knows, but despite his nap, he’s still exhausted. He needs to shower, to massage his muscles, to  _ eat _ something real, but he can’t muster the energy. 

He thinks of Gneip’s strange warnings, and Thor’s confessions, and the strange fear he’d tasted in the air about the worried god. 

Loki…

He feels something in him split, something that, before he shuts his eyes and drifts to sleep, vows to find out the truth of his birth and to stop being cruel to Thor. He prays to Ymir for strength. For courage. 

For whatever this is not to destroy this strange new home he has discovered.

His Future might be the only person aside from Gneip to truly care about him, to have his back.

Besides, he’s learned recently he rather likes having someone to scratch behind his ears and to lie at his back. 

And, he thinks, just before the dreams come, if he wants Thor’s help with the boy with the milk, he probably needs to be kind and  _ earn _ that help.

-

The dreams are horrible; the heavy fist that used to leave him bleeding in the snow. The mockery of the guard that would see him hung as soon as protected. The cries of a woman he cannot remember, a woman who is torn between hating everything he is, and desperately begging them not to snatch him away. 

He can’t see her face, not clearly, only the glint of summer evening eyes and dark hair, strange and furious in the silvery snow. She’s so  _ warm _ , too warm against his blue skin. She sings to him, low and smoky.

He’s trying, trying  _ hard _ to thicken the ice that soothes his heart, but she screams and he wishes no harm to this strange woman. His skin _ burns _ and it cannot figure out what form to take. Over and over his bones crack and his skull shatters and his organs twist. 

Loki wakes up screaming, his whole body on fire like someone struck a match in the core of him. Gneip is there, trying to sooth him but his touch sizzles against Loki’s icy shell. He’s speaking, but Loki cannot tell if it is the home-tongue or the past-tongue; none of the words make sense. They mean nothing to him. He wants the guard  _ gone _ , “Don’t you fucking touch me!” He screams. 

The door bangs open, claps like thunder against the marble and he can see the cruel King who knew what he was and lied and the Queen with her sad eyes and he can see Thor, desperately, wild, mad with something Loki cannot name. 

He forgets his nakedness and flings himself from his fur. “It  _ hurts _ ,” he wails. His skin itches, blue and white and impossible black fur and glittering jade scales. “It hurts and I cannot,” he gasps. 

Thor grabs him, holds him close and strokes thick and calloused fingers down his back and across his shoulders and he doesn’t flinch away from the shards of ice that grow and melt from Loki’s skin.

Loki inhales, and it’s like collapsing into bed after a long journey, the spice of his Future. He settles, skin a marbled blue struck through with the Asgardian pale. He’s sobbing, fingers digging so hard into Thor’s shoulder it  _ must hurt _ . 

“Leave.” 

He feels the word exit Thor’s body. 

Gneip and the Cruel King both go to protest but electricity cracks off Thor, and the Queen gently guides them out. 

Thor walks them back, drops Loki into his furs, and curls around him, a strange parallel to their early nap, except that Loki gets to keep his face buried in the golden curls on his chest. 

“So you are back,” Thor says quietly. 

Loki doesn’t answer, too tired and too afraid. 

Ashamed. 

“Do you,” Thor hesitates. “Nightmares are,” the god pauses. Loki can feel him trembling, can feel his struggle. 

“Do you have them too?” he asks quietly voice strangely rough and cracked, surprising them both. 

“Yes,” Thor answers. “But I think all soldiers do.” 

“I am no soldier,” Loki hisses, shame hot against his spine. 

Thor presses his fingers under Loki’s chin, and with the same surprising gentleness he always shows people, lifts until they are staring, greenredblue eyes into bluestormgrey eyes. “You are perhaps the strongest soldier I have ever met, Loki Laufeyson, Heir-Apparent. Because your war started before you even knew what battle was, and you bore it’s scars before you could speak.” 

The gentleness hurts, the kind pity in his voice cuts at Loki, and he wants to lash out. But he remembers the boy with milk and the anguish as the god split his knuckles so he bites his tongue. 

“I want to know the truth,” Loki whispers, “about who I am. Where I come from and why you chose me.” 

“If I promise to tell you, do you promise to stop running, to  _ try _ with me?” Thor stares at him, hard and demanding.

“What if we don’t work?” Loki pleads. 

“If, after trying you hate me, then I will release you from your obligations,” Thor says. “But I will not send you back to them, to that place.” 

Loki chews that. He thinks he could make a life here, thinks he could live as the midgardian kit on a diet of cheese and smoked meat and milk. He doesn’t long for Jotunheim. He’s not sure  _ Jotunheim _ was ever what he wanted anyway. “Okay,” he says quietly. “Okay, but not tonight.” 

Because he is tired, and he is sore, and he can feel the storm brewing. He wants one more moment of peace. 

Thor nods, and shifts about until he has Loki held tight against his chest, arms cradling him. He shoves a leg between Loki’s, and Loki suddenly remembers his state of undress but he’s  _ so damn tired.  _

“In the morning then,” Thor says, unconcerned as always with propriety and decency. “We will sleep, and then when the sun wakes we will eat and talk. Gneip will join us, and-” 

“No one else,” Loki says in a rush. “Please, just us.” 

He can feel Thor’s heavy gaze, the uncertainty, but his Future nods and Loki shuts his eyes, desperate and thankful. Thor is warm, but in the best way.

It doesn’t itch beneath his skin, doesn’t bubble in his veins or crack against his bones. Loki thinks this must be how a proper Frost Giant feels when the snow pelts their skin. Safe, comfortable. 

He wonders if he can ever undo the marbling of his skin. If he even cares to, anymore. He’s almost asleep when he says, “Before that conversation though, there is a boy you must protect.” 

Thor sighes, like he’d been one breath away from slumber. “Mm, why?” 

“Because his guardians do not,” Loki says harshley. “Because the people who should, instead leave him bruised but he is still kind. He is strong. Find a place for him in your guard if you don’t want to deal with him, but before anything else, you will protect him.” 

He feels Thor’s laugh, more than hears it. “Not yet crowned and already making demands.” 

Something brushes through his hair, through the tangled mass he needs to braid. It’s a phantom feeling, from when he was small and he remembers the evening-eyed woman for a moment.  _ A kiss _ . 

“Please,” he says quietly.

“Very well,” Thor agrees. “Now sleep, Loki Laufeyson. Sleep.” 

Loki does, one last desperate prayer poured out to Ymir. 

-

Loki wakes, and it takes him a moment to understand why the cold is wrong, but when he realizes, he thinks the disappointment will make him sick across the floors. He curls as tight as he can, and if his muscles, his bones, his very  _ soul  _ didn’t ache so deeply, he might shift into the Asgardian form. Find how to make the wings work. 

He doubts it would work, heavy as he is with grief and disappointment. “Ymir,” he says in the past-tongue, “is this your will? Or have I strayed too far?” 

He gets no answer, but the soft scrape of the heavy wood door against the marble. Loki doesn’t even turn. 

“I know I said we would find the boy before food, but you grow skinny once more, Jotun,” Thor says softly. 

Loki jerks up, sheets falling to his waist and he thinks his heart must beat so hard his chest will bursts with it. He looks at Future, standing in soft linens with a tray of food, the sun bright behind him, even in the early hour. 

Thor blinks at him in surprise. “I did not mean to wake you so frighteningly,” he says, frowning. 

Loki scowls, fangs sharp. He adds a hiss just because he’s still in the habit. “Then perhaps do not storm into a room so loudly.”

Thor’s frown deepens, hurt growing in his eyes and Loki sighs, his own gaze softening. “I am sorry, Future. Mornings have never been kind to me.” 

Thor keeps frowning, eyes assessing, but he doesn’t challenge the lie. He carefully sets a tray beside Loki. Chilled fruits and sharp cheeses and crusty, dark breads shot through with seeds and nuts. There’s even a small thing of peppered meat that makes Loki purr. 

It earns him a soft smile from Thor. “See, Jotun? I have learned what you like.” 

Shame burns through Loki, like the sun at midday. He has no clue what Thor eats. But he can try. He picks through the meat, finds a particularly large piece and bites it. Jotun teeth are good for ripping this meat, better than the Midgardian or the strange beast of yesterday. He offers it to Thor who leans back in surprise, then grins his blinding smile and takes it. “I did not expect you to share.”

Loki snorts, “You bring a feast your guard could not finish and you expect me not to share?” 

“Not with me,” Thor says. It’s so low, Loki wonders if he was supposed to hear it. Still, he makes it a point to push cheese and bread at the Heir. He is loath to share the chilled fruit, one of the few delicacies he truly adors. 

Thor doesn’t even try to take a piece. “You pray to Ymir in your sleep,” the sunshine god says suddenly. 

Loki stares at him, “I what.” 

“You implore Ymir to take care of my people,” Thor says. He’s not challenging Loki, not exactly. 

Loki still doesn’t like it. Thor continues, “I do not remember the last time I made offering at an alter, or beeseched a god.” 

Loki frowns. “You should remedy this. Whether to Ymir or one of your own, it is important to show thanks to the ones who watch you.” 

Thor studies him, his gaze at a heavy weight on Loki’s shoulders. “Strange the things that you believe, Jotun. Strange what makes you tick, where you devote your heart.” 

Loki bristles, though he is unsure why. Before he can figure it out though, Thor is standing, reaching for something. He hands Loki an outfit, a long tunic and leggings in the same linen material he wears. His have been dyed a beautiful jade though. “Come, we have a boy to rescue,” Thor says.

For once, he turns and gives Loki his privacy to change, and for once, Loki is stung by this, desperate for the gaze of his Future. He dresses quickly, then stretches. Everything creaks and groans, and he sighs. “Remind me to spend less time in the form of beast. It hurts after,” he says absently. 

“I shall,” Thor promises anyway. 

They walk through the town quietly, shoulders brushing. Loki wonders what these people think of their golden king in his white linen standing next to the marbled halfbreed draped in jade stone. There seems to be some amount of awe, and it makes him puff his chest out a little, lifts his chin. He doesn’t smile, but his frown isn’t cruel either. 

“How did you find this boy?” Thor asks suddenly. 

Loki blushes, half his skin red, half purple. “Does it matter?” 

Thor eyes him, wary but not suspicious. “I suppose not. I worry though, about making him a soldier. War is…” he trails off like he had before, talking about the soldiers. War. 

“You speak as though you have fought in many, Future,” Lokie prys gently. 

“I am older than you suspect, Jotun. And I knew battle before I knew song.” Thor’s eyes are hard, energy cracking bright white behind them. 

Loki looks at him horrified. “They would send a boy into  _ battle?” _

“Your people do it all the time,” Thor reminds him. 

“Jotunheim is a savage place. A savage people. We know nothing  _ but _ war. But you, here on Asgard,” he looks at Thor gently. “I had hope your childhoods were peaceful.” 

Thor smiles at him, sad and reminiscent. “It was. It was, Loki. They won’t send us until we are able to bear the weight. I had a glorious childhood. They trained me for the inevitable. They did not require me to act on that until my shoulders where broad, my back strong. But you have hidden for many years, Jotun. And I have had to take my place as the future king of Asgard, and have had to defend these borders.”

“I do not want him sold to the battlefield,” Loki sniffs. Its wetter, more pleading than he would have preferred but he prays silently to Ymir that Thor understands. 

“That was never my plan,” Thor answers. “You need a page boy, and so you shall have one.” 

They’re at the door, so Loki can’t say anything, but he reaches, finds Thor’s heavy, scarred hand and squeezes it as they knock on the door. 

-

Wide eyes stare after Loki as he and Thor lounge on soft couches. Loki eyes him back. “You may sit, wherever.” 

The boy studies his dirty hands, then stares at the fine couch. Thor laughs. “Or you may bathe first.” He waves a vague hand and the boy looks uncertain, but then he carefully tip toes towards the water. 

“That was easier than expected,” Loki says. 

Thor shrugs. “Not really. They get rid of a burden, get the accolades of saying their son works for the Future King, and money that might last them a year if they’re less stupid than normal.” 

Loki is surprised by the viciousness in his voice, the fierce protectiveness of his eyes trained on the boy in the suds. 

“I was wrong then,” Loki says, pleased and serene. 

“About?” 

“Perhaps you need not pray or offer to worship your gods. Perhaps you need only care for what they have made,” Loki shrugs. 

Thor grins gently. “Do you fit? In with ‘what they have made’ Loki?”

Loki frowns. He looks down at the jade over his knees, picks at threads that aren’t loose. “I think,” he begins slowly. “I remember a woman. Her eyes were like the evening and her hair dark and her skin golden.” 

Thor nods. “What else?”

Loki closes his eyes. “Only what I was told. My mother was a weakling. A runt herself, not fit to bear the King's heir. But she had nobel blood, and there were few choices. She died, and left me unfinished.”

“Then they lied to you,” Thor says plainly. 

Loki looks at him, at the simple honesty on his face. “I am afraid,” he finds himself confessing. “Afraid to learn of the mother I have so oft resented.” A lullaby echoes in his ears, but it is in the home-tongue, not the past-tongue. “I am afraid of what I might always have known.” 

Thor nods. He speaks, but it is careful. The tongue of one telling the truth as best they can, while keeping secrets that are not their own. “There were stories, here. Of a friend to the throne. A Lady with wild ambition and heart, who ran. She thought-” he grows quiet, pensive. “No one knows exactly. Perhaps she sought freedom. Or peace. Perhaps adventure. But,” and Thor pauses, eyeing Loki carefully. There’s an air of hurt there, something deeply personal Loki wants to pick at, but later. “Laufey saw an opportunity. Two magics merging. He had no care for the Lady, but he assumed his heir would be strong.” 

“He should have known better,” Loki snarls. “No woman could survive that.” 

“But she did,” Thor tells him. “She did, and she hid with her child for two full spins of the world. Laufey thought she had been unable to bear, and then his son cried and he grew furious.” Thor goes silent, hands wrestling with one of Loki’s obsidian knives same as he wrestles with the words he must say. “He thought she had his heir because she wanted the power for herself.” 

“And then he found a runtling,” Loki finally understands. Thor gives him a sad smile. “What happened to the Lady?” 

Thor shrugs. “What does Laufey do to anyone he feels has crossed him?” The bitterness, the anger. The rage and  _ hurt _ . Ymir guides Loki, tells him,  _ Thor knew this Lady.  _ He shakes the thought as soon as he has it, because it’s impossible.

Loki _is_ sick across the floor this time.

They’re silent for a long time, Loki with his head between his knees and Thor, fingers carefully skimming over the knobs of his spine. Then Thor stands and Loki watches him pad to the bowl of fruit, still chilled by some magic here. Thor picks through, an obvious attempt to distract himself. 

“You know,” Thor says falsely absent, two fuchsia fruits in his hands. “Her eyes were like the evening, dark but shining. Really, beautiful like a clear night in the summer, the kind we used to lay under. But some people whispered they shifted between silver and blue and green as well.” He side eyes Loki. “A rare skill, even among Asgardians, passed down through the blood.”

Loki stares after him, his gut churning and his mind racing and the truth.

The truth unbearable, his mother with her summer evening eyes and her lullabies and her sacrifice. 

He wants to hate Thor for telling him. Instead he takes an offered fruit and leans into Thor when the Prince sits too close to him on the bed. 

-

Thor lets him linger in the Heir’s room. Lets him clean himself, weep in peace, save for his page. 

“I know you,” the boy says quietly. Loki stares into his blue eyes, at his mop of brown curls. “Not in this form, but your eyes are the same, even discolored. Sad, desperate, so full of longing and hurt and kindness.” 

Loki snarls at him. 

“You do not frighten me, Heir-Apparent. I’ve scratched behind your ears,” but the boy bows his head respectfully. 

“What is your name?” Loki demands. 

“Harley,” he answers. 

“You would do well to keep your knowledge close to your heart,” Loki chides him gently. 

Harley just smiles and he kneels beside Loki’s curled form, carefully stroking through his hair. “Come, Heir-Apparent. My sister taught me the braids and yours is all wrong. You wear one of a boy, not a King.” His fingers are soft but quick as he works through Loki’s hair. “You took my advice.” 

“Hmm?” Loki asks.

“You returned to the Prince, and you are giving him a chance. Do you like him?” 

Loki scowls and blushes, but he answers, “Unfortunately.”

It makes Harley grin. “You could do worse, Heir-Apparent.” 

“Please,” Loki groans. “When we are just us, call me Loki. I get tired of the titles here.” 

Harley laughs, a bubbling brook sound and it softens something in Loki, makes this place a little more homely. 

“I am afraid,” Loki admits. “Of how much this place has grown to feel like home. Of how much  _ he _ has grown to feel like something I might cherish.”

Harlye hums and tugs hair into place. “Perhaps we can make an offering to your god, see if Ymir has some sign of what is to come?”

“You know of my god?” Loki asks, shocked,

“I knew who you were long before the kitten  _ stayed _ on my stoop, Heir-Loki,” Harley snorts I have followed you for a long time. You leave me food and blankets even when you ignore others, so I helped the Future King guard your alter. He taught me of Ymir, the war-god who can be kind to those most desperate.” 

Loki’s eyes burn with tears, and, he thinks, a little shame. “Yes. Ymir might like to hear the prayers of another. Although I wonder if Thor will let us go without some guard.”

“He could be the guard?” Harley suggest gently. 

Loki can’t explain why he isn’t quite ready for that. “Perhaps Gneip will go.” He frowns, “Or that oaf Volstaag.” 

Harley laughs again, and Loki sighs. Are all Asgardians so full of the sun and heat?

But they go, collecting the oaf Loki used to bite.

-

Loki can’t shake an uncomfortable feeling. One related to Thor, his stories of war, his knowledge of Jotunheim and its language and ritual. The soft way he spoke of Loki’s mother. 

“Did you know her?” He asks suddenly. They’re at the market, picking through fruits and sweets and pies stuffed full of spice and onion and meat, Harley and Gneip gleaming with the coins they’ve been given to buy trinkets. 

“Yes,” Thor says plainly. “I did.”

“How,” Loki demands. “You were a boy, like me, when I came.” 

“You misremember. I was a man when you came. I’d already fought two battles.”

“But you are still so young,” Loki gasps with horror. 

Thor frowns at him. “Our years are different than yours, Jotun. How old do you think me?”

Loki struggles to find an answer he believes, until he finally settled on, “No more than a handful of springs older than I.”

Thor frowns at him, something broken in his gaze. “Sometimes, Jotun, it is I who forget how young  _ you _ are. How little of the universe you have seen.” He adds no further comment, instead picking a delicate, teal frosted cake that fizzes against Loki’s tongue. 

Loki doesn’t press, for once, and when Thor finally begins to fade, eyes drifting listlessly over sweets and toys and jewels, Loki gently tugs his wrist. “Take me back,” he commands gently. Because it’s easier to admit he’s tired, he’s bored of these people. 

Thor gives him a small smile, the faintest uptick of his lips, and it’s still so bright Loki has to look away. 

-

After, it’s a nightmarish game of rituals and courtship. 

Loki  _ hates _ it. Sometimes, he thinks Thor does too. When the god’s hands shake, and his eyes crack with electricity. When he paces the room Loki has quietly invaded, quietly claimed. 

“A  _ ball _ ,” Thor grumbles, voice low and caught in his chest. “I have better things to do than parade myself in frilly clothes for people to gawk at.” 

Loki stays unusually quiet, because they’ve had this argument. 

Because he’s  _ used _ to being paraded about, put on display, puppeted. Thor catches himself, and flops down beside Loki, arm thrown over his face. Loki shifts them about until Thor’s head is in his lap, and he can practice the braids Harley has been teaching him. He lets ice coat his fingers, almost absently. “It could be worse, Promised. They could ask you to dance naked.” 

Thor stills beneath his fingers. “I cannot tell, Jotun, if that is a joke, or one of your paltry attempts to lighten the horror of your own childhood.”

Loki smiles softly to himself, twisting the pale gold strands, tugging gently. “Can it not be both?” 

Thor bats his hands away and sits up. He gently cups Loki’s face in his hands, eyes heavy and serious the way they so rarely are. “I wish sometimes, Heir of Jotunheim, that I had learned of you sooner.  _ Rescued  _ you earlier.”

Loki grabs the thick wrists, tilts his face so he can bury it in warm and scarred palms. “I regret nothing, Future.”

-

Harley becomes their greatest weapon in a sea of ceremony and expectation, constantly appearing with sly eyes and a gentle reminder “You have a fitting in 10 minutes,” or “Your presence has been requested in the chambers.” 

Frigga knows exactly what game they are playing. Sometimes, she smiles at Harley, pats a cushion beside her and offers him chilled fruits and sweet drinks that crack like electricity in his mouth. “Come, Little Harley, a few moments more can’t hurt.” 

Harley eyes her with a wary distrust he’s learned from Loki, and he always stares at the Jotun first, waiting for the head nod before he sits. 

That is when Loki remembers that Harley is so young. That he is trying, the only way he knows how, to give the boy a  _ childhood _ .

He brings this up with Thor. “I have seen very little of this place beyond the walls of this castle,” he says casually. They’re lying in Thor’s bed, watching the ice grow and recede into his skin. Watching the marbled skin shift into scales and furs and feathers, but never just blue or just bland. “I was thinking we could take a day or two, and wander this place.” 

Thor opens an eye, vaguely annoyed that his almost-nap is interrupted. “Father will now allow us to go without chaperon.” 

Loki smiles at him, trails a frozen finger over red-bite lips, “We could take Harley with us. Pack a few meals, make it a whole outing.” 

Thor looks unconvinced, even as he catches the finger in his mouth. “You do not quite understand the functions of a page boy, Jotun.” 

Loki waves his hand, “I understand perfectly. But we both know Harley isn’t exactly a page boy. He’s,” and Loki pauses. He doesn’t know how to explain that the kid is so much more than a kind servant. He doesn’t know how to word the strange possessive need he has to  _ protect _ and  _ care _ for the boy. 

Honestly, it frightens him. 

Thor sits up, sheet falling down his torso to pool at his hips. “I’ve been meaning to ask, Loki,” he says. 

It makes Loki shiver, hearing his name in the deep rumble. His true name.

“When we are… if we are wed, they will expect you to take a servant more fitting to your position,” Thor holds a finger up, silencing Loki’s protest. “I was thinking, Harley might make a,” he pauses, blushing. “Well, we are both rather fond of the boy, and neither of us could possibly hope to bare a true heir.” 

Loki stays quiet, because he’s wondered, sometimes, if the ability to shift might also allow him the means to produce, but he’s never really or truly wanted to try. However, he knows how vital an heir is to the Asgardians. 

“We need an heir, Loki, and we are both fond of Harley,” Thor says, gently. 

Loki narrows his eyes, feels the ice curl over his shoulders, twist through his braids. “If this is some cruel joke, Future, than you should know, it is not funny.” 

Thor smiles at him. “It is no joke, Loki Laufeyson. Not even I would make this into a trivial matter.”

Loki eyes him a moment longer, then throws himself at Thor, kissing him hard, desperate, the way he has longed to since the tapestries.

-

After, it is easy to be affectionate; to stand by Thor’s side and smile, to link their hands together and to invade each other’s space. To eat from each other’s plate. But it’s not perfect. Loki can feel it, the sharp edge of secrets kept and shame. He wants, needs, to ask Thor. To find out who the nightwood eyes woman is. 

But he is afraid, because it will change everything. 

“Harley,” he asks into the quiet of the night. Harley is busy packing, preparing for their “hunt,” scoffing at the things Thor and Loki have packed. “Yes, Master Loki?” The boy answers. 

“Tell me what you know of the one Thor loved before me,” he demands. 

Harley freezes, does a full body turn and eyes Loki warily. “There are some secrets, Heir-Apparent, that you and your Future should discuss.”

“And if Thor doesn’t want to?” Loki asks, ashamed of the frustration bleeding through his voice. 

Harley shrugs. “That is your lovers’ quarrel, Heir-Apparent. It doesn’t do for a boy from the Low Alley to reveal the Prince’s stories.”

Loki eyes him, with disdain and annoyance. “What is your worth, if you aren’t loyal to me?”

Harley stands up, and Loki is pleased to see that his time in this place has helped him grow, though he is unsure how he feels about the boy reaching his chin. Soon, even he will tower over Loki. “Do not, Master Loki, take my silence for anything other than unending loyalty to you. But know that sometimes, protecting someone means protecting them from themselves, as well as the outside world.” 

Harley slips furs into a basket, then approaches Loki. He doesn’t bow his head in deference, because he knows how much it annoys the Jotun. He does, however, kneel beside him. He carefully laces Loki’s boots, pulls them then to make sure they’re tight enough. “Besides, Master Loki, I am not the only one keeping secrets.” Harley’s mouth turns down sharply, and Loki aches to tell him.

But Thor has made him promise not to reveal their plan until after he is crowned, and Odin cannot interfere. Loki gives them both about six more minutes before it burst out anyway. At least they’ll do so together.

Harley taps his thigh, “Hurry. We shouldn’t keep the Prince waiting.” 

Loki snorts inelegantly. “Thor can get used to this, I plan to make him learn a thing called patience.”

The treason is worth the warm laughter that spills from rosy youthful lips. 

-

Thor won’t tell them where they are going. Not even Harley seems to know. 

“Haven’t you left the city?” Loki grumbles. The weather is sunny and warm, and no one is around, but he can still feel their stares. 

Harly scoffs, “Do not be stupid, Heir-Apparent. Low Alley boys almost never leave Low Alley.”

Thor eyes them both, the casual affection between them. Especially how Loki lets Harley link their arms together. 

“Are you jealous, Sunshine?” Loki asks with a smirk. But he holds his hand out and tries not to shiver and the ungodly heat that always radiates from his future. “Are we near?”

Thor sighs. “Loki, must you asks this every five steps?” 

“Yes,” he answers petulantly. “Can’t I shift into a beast more suited for this terrain?” He feels his eyes light up with excitement. “I saw in your books and the Midgardian tomes this great beast! Ears like wings and a nose that allows it to breath underwater. Of course, the Midgardians’ think it cannot fly and the Asgardians are too dull to realize the tusks are valuable-” he goes silent when he sees Thor’s unamused face. “You spoil fun, Future.” 

Thor shrugs. “That beast won’t be able to navigate the more narrow pathways. But if you are tired, you may climb on my back.” He lowers himself to a squat and grins, bright and gently mocking, and Loki. 

Loki snaps his teeth, his fangs. “Perhaps I will slither beside your feet and bite at your ankles.” 

Harley and Thor both laugh then, bright bubbly sounds. Harley says, “He is rather fond of the serpent.” 

Thor says, “Wait until you wake up with it slithering up your neck.”

He isn’t pouting, when he storms ahead.

No matter how much they laugh and chide, he isn’t pouting. 

He might sulk though, for a while. Harley dashes off in front of them, as only a boy can, and he returns with bundles of flowers in an array of impossible colors and shapes. He smiles and Loki and presents them. “Master Loki, a gift, in honor of what is to come,” he says mischievously. 

Thor gently shoves at him. “Ahead, Harley, through the stone pass. “ 

Harley’s eyes go bright and he takes off again, full speed and whooping with joy.” 

Loki turns to Thor. “Is it safe to send him ahead on his own?”

“He’s a Low Alley boy! If anyone can survive, its him,” Thor says jovially. He must see the concern still etched into Loki’s face because he adds, “I would not send him any place dangerous, Loki Laufeyson. He’s important to me, too.” 

“Why?” Loki demands. “Why is some runtling from the trash heaps important to you, King-to-be?”

Thor gives him a look, one Loki has seen on Gneip’s face many a time. The one that says, “Really? So daft?” He is gentle as he cups Loki’s cheek, strokes a large thumb over it. “You love him, Loki, which is enough to make him special to me. But more importantly, he loves you. So much that he would challenge royalty and risk his life just to tell the king and his heir how to treat you.” 

Loki snorts once, airily amused. “Surely he isn’t that daft.” 

Thor laughs, “Loki, anyone who loves you must be daft on some level.”

Loki shifts, turns until he can stare into Thor’s eyes as best he can. “And you, future? How daft are you?” 

Thor smiles, and it’s tinged in the faintest of sorrows that cuts too deep into Loki. “I’m the daftest of them all, Jotun. Because I’m still hoping to trick you into marrying me someday.”

Loki frowns. He shifts on his feet, pondering. 

He says, “And if it doesn’t require a trick?” 

Thor eyes him, cautious hope crackling in blue-river eyes. “Jotun, is this you agreeing to marry me?” 

Loki sighs, feigning annoyance. “Well, Future. It’s a bit hard to agree to an unasked question.” 

Thor tilts his head. “This is not the traditional way to asks. There should be a ball, and a feast, and a grand ceremony.” 

“Nothing about us or our relationship has ever been traditional. Why should this be any different?” Loki asks. 

Thor grins again, one of those obnoxiously blinding things that makes Loki squint, not the pounding of his heart or the tears he’s certainly not holding back. 

“Well then, Loki Laufeyson, heir of Jotun. Stay with me forever?” Thor asks quietly. 

Loki snorts at him, making his decision instantly. “That’s not the wording you’re supposed to use, but I guess it works.” He grows serious for a moment. “Of course, you great sunny oaf. Of course I’ll stand by you forever.” 

They kiss then, something warm and gentle and not at all a battle for dominance. Loki thinks, perhaps, it's a dance of equals. Thor taste like chilled fruit and warm fizzy wine and some unnamable happiness that makes him as afraid as it does hopeful. 

They kiss and they pull apart and something deep and buried in Loki settles. His skin is still marbled, but for the first time he can see what Harley and Gneip see in the strange coloring. In what Thor sees in it. 

“Come, Future,” Loki says gently, no callus sarcasm lacing his tone. “I believe Harley is waiting for us, and we have something to tell him.” 

Thor sighs, but he doesn’t fight Loki’s tug on his hand. “I thought we were going to wait until  _ after _ everything is official.”

Loki grins at him, bright and not sunny, but full like a moon lighting his path, “I’m sure Harley can keep a secret for a few days.” He takes off running, light and free, not  _ away _ but  _ towards.  _

-

True to his guesses, Harley is sulking, feet in a pool so clear it almost appears empty. “Took your time,” he grumbles. But then he turns, and he sees Loki’s face and his own lights up. Then it goes through a complicated series of emotions and the boy turns on Thor and he punches the heir as hard as he can in the stomach. “You said I could be. There!” 

Thor catches his fist but he’s grinning too hard for the kid to be frightened. “Loki was a bit impatient, Harley of Low Alley.” 

Harley narrows his eyes and turns on Loki who holds up his hands. “Thor has something to ask you!” He cries quickly.

Thor looks at him, horrified and betrayed. “Me? How am I supposed to do this! He’s your stray!” 

Loki points an accusatory finger at him, “You brought him into the palace!” 

“You got attached to him as a kit!’ Thor says. And then his face goes red. So red, Loki is momentarily afraid his future is about to implode. 

“Wait,” he says slowly, rounding on the Heir. “Wait a moment.” He presses a finger into Thor’s chest, then summons an obsidian blade. “Are you telling me you’ve always known about the kit form?” 

Thor cuts his eyes at Harley, squirming. “Not- well, no. But after-”

Harley gently pries the blade from Loki’s hands. “Doesn't bode well to stab your promised moments after you’ve agreed to wed him. Besides, I told him.”

Loki rounds on the boy, scandalized. 

Harley rolls his eyes. “Don’t be so childish. He needed to know what to look for, in case you ended up in danger. You don’t always pick the sturdies, most hardy of forms. Now, both of you be good and eat.” He waves his hands towards a blanket spread with all manners of treats and breads and cheeses. There’s even the wine that fizzes cool on his tongue. 

Loki eyes it, and even though he’s pleased, excited even, there’s a tiny part of him heavy with the need to know one more thing, before he ties himself to this world forever. He watches Thor pick a particularly large hunk of crust bread and twist it around fragrant and crumbly cheese. He watches him hand it to Harley and thinks, “Tomorrow. I can wait one more day.” 

Harley, ever from the Low Alley digs into the cheese with no manners, and then, mouth still full, asks, “So when you guys makin’ it official?”

Thor tsks at the boy, handing him a napkin and thumbing crumbs from the corner of his mouth. “I believe, Harley, Loki and I had something to ask you first. Before we got distracted by Loki’s need to stab things he likes.” He’s smiling, so Loki snaps teeth at him.    
“Harley, would you perhaps consider doing us the honor,” Thor begins.

Loki sighs, dramatic and loud, “Kid, will you be our heir?” He glances at Thor, smile only mostly contained. “You took too long, Future.” 

Harley blinks at both of them, gold hair shimmering and brown eyes liquid, like stones under rushing water. “Is this-” He sniffs, no shame as he wipes his sleeve across his face. “This isn’t a joke, or a trick, Master Loki, is it?”

Loki frowns, and he leans down, cups Harley’s face in his hands and redbluegreen eyes bore into brown. “I would never take something so serious and turn it into a light joke, Harley. Be mine. Ours. Be  _ more _ than a glorified page boy.”

“Why?” Harley demands and it comes out angry but Loki hears the desperation. “Why me?”

Loki smiles at him, but it Thor who speaks. “Because you saw beyond the skin, into what a Jotun could be, both the good and the bad, and you loved anyway. Even when you could have been cold and cruel.” 

Harley studies them both, and then he throws himself at them. Wraps tightly around Loki, sobbing unabashed into his shoulder, and Thor wraps around them both, holds them like they are everything in the universe. Loki thinks he understands that.

There’s very little he wouldn’t do for them.

-

They spend all day bathing in the light by the pool, carefree, unburdened by the courts and expectations. They make all manner of ridiculous plans. Of Loki shifting into female form, of Thor dressed in the finest gown, of Harley riding in on Loki’s back, on the biggest most absurd form any of them can dream up.

Loki lays now, head pillowed on Thor’s hip, enjoying the fingers scritching along his scalp. Harley is curled beside him, sleeping. “I do want to do it quickly though. I want-” he wants the show. The crowds and the parties and the eyes forced to adore him, to see his worth for once in his damned life. But he also just wants to finally,  _ finally,  _ be able to take his place beside Thor. As an equal. As something more than a bargaining chip, or a burden, or shame. “I don’t want to wait.”

Thor hums, a deep rumbling Loki can feel. “We have waited long enough, Loki,” he answers gently. “We can do it quickly, quietly. Right when we get back.” 

Loki shakes his head. As nice as it sounds, he knows enough of Asgardian ritual to say, “You cannot skip the purification, Thor. What is one more day when you have waited this long?” 

“And you?” Thor asks. “Is there any ritual you must complete?” 

Loki tries to think, to summon images of Jotun rituals. But Gneip has never told him of any, nor has he stumbled across any in his studies. “I will offer to Ymir. Thank my God for all I have been blessed with. And then, Future, you will truly be mine.”

“Why then, do you still hesitate?” Thor asks. 

Loki bites his lip, bites until blue drips. “Ask me when we step back between the gates. Before you are pure, we will end the secrets between us.” 

Thor rumbles, but he does not argue. 

They rest then, the sun fading into the moon, cool air causing them to curl around each other, Harley between them. 

The walk back in the morning is quiet, calm, The stillness before a storm, Loki thinks, and he shudders. When Thor tucks him into his side, sharing his warmth. Loki doesn’t correct him. Instead he watches Harley before go before them, chancing tiny air beast and kicking mud about. When the gates of the palace town appear before them, Loki calls him back. “Run ahead, Harley. Find Gneip and tell him he need be ready to let me go tomorrow. And remember, you cannot reveal your own secret until  _ after _ the ceremony.” 

Harley smiles, bright and boyish and so naive, and he whoops as he runs, startling birds and people alike.” 

Thor waits until Harley has disappeared to turn towards him. 

Before he can speak, Loki says, “Whatever the outcome, I will wed you tomorrow, Sunshine.” 

Thor frowns. “What is it, Loki? What fear do you still hold?”

“Did you know her?” Loki asks gently.

“Who?” Thor demands, but Loki can already hear the answer.

“My mother,” he responds. “Was she the,” he pauses. But he doesn’t have to finish. Thor is already nodding.

“I loved her Loki, but not in the way either of us wanted. I could have been happy, but she wanted more than a marriage of friendship. So she ran. And I did not chase her, just as she asked. By the time I heard,” he looks at Loki, but he’s seeing something else. “We couldn’t find her son for so long. And then we heard of a boy who could also shift his form. Lady Sif,” Thor’s eyes go electric. “Very very few knew of that talent. Even here it is a skill not exactly well accepted.”

Loki lifts his chin, tries not to let the salt fall from them. “So that is why you chose me, then. To repay an old friend.”

Thor shrugs. “I picked you because,” he frowns. “I loved her, Loki. Deep and to my core. I couldn’t love her the way she needed, but I could love you the way you needed. And yes, I could repay a debt that never should have happened.” Thor reaches for him, but his hand hovers just above Loki’s marbled skin. He is afraid. 

So is Loki. 

Loki turns on his heel, and Thor doesn’t chase him. 

Doesn’t need to. The god of thunder makes his own way to the castle, towards the hall where he will pray and be bathed. 

Towards the altar where he will wait to see if Loki will keep true to his word and join him at his side.

-

Loki prays to Ymir. He’s not sure what exactly he is praying, not words, not pleas. Desperation bleeds from him. At some point, Gneip takes his place beside Loki, and he must know what his charge has learned because he traces an empty spot in the markings, the gap above his heart. 

“Come, Flake. And let us fill this in before you take your place tomorrow,” he is gentle, kind. He is old, and Loki starts at the realization. 

“How long will you stay?” He asks. “Once I’m bound to the Asgardian?” 

Gneip smiles at him, “I will not leave you until I must, Flake.” There is humor in his eyes. “Besides, I heard there is a new Flake that will soon need me to guide him.” 

Loki scowls, “Can he not keep a secret?” 

Gneip laughs. “He has learned much from you, Master Loki. He knows who he can trust.”

Loki takes the offered hand and follows Gneip back to the chambers he has not occupied in a long while. He had not realized how long he’d bent before Ymir. 

“I know you are not truly of Asgard, even with your lineage,” Gneip says. “But Harley insisted we bathe you in the same tradition. I think he just likes the way the spices smell, but,” his guard shrugs. 

“I will suffer the indignity,” Loki says. But he can feel his lips tugging up. 

Despite their jokes, Loki knows how desperate Thor is for him to wear what he has left. Loki fingers the jade cloth, so soft beneath his fingers, and his eyes study the intricate red detailing. Small, glimmering. “How did he know?” Loki asks, fingering the new marks on his chest, still sore. 

Gneip smiles, “He has always been respectful of your heritage, Loki. Of what it means to you.”

“How is he?” Loki asks. 

Gneip cups Loki’s cheek, “He stands, afraid you will run. Afraid you are your mother’s son. But there is hope in the air, so he waits.”

“Then I should not make him wait further,” Loki announces. 

Gneip leads him out, down the marble halls, and Loki remembers a lifetime ago, when this walk would have left his body to stain the floors. 

-

Volstagg waits at the entrance, eyes ablaze and Loki enters, chin lifted. 

He spits before the Jotun’s feet, and the air in the room vanishes. “You are vermin. You break his heart, then saunter in here like you belong.” 

Loki stares down his nose. “Oaf. You’re in my way. I have something to say to the Future King of Asgard.” 

Volstagg pulls a sword out, presses the blade to Loki’s neck. Gneip tense beside him, but Loki shoos him away. “You would do well to put that away.” 

Volstagg makes an ugly, beastly noise and presses harder. “I should gut you, coward. I should run you through for the tricks you place.” 

Loki can hear the crack of thunder, feel Thor’s anger. He snaps his fingers, watches as Volstagg’s blade dissolves like melting snow in his hands. “I am warning you, Oaf. Let me pass.” 

Volstagg screeches, lunges. His heavy fist catch Loki offgard, and he goes down, head spinning. 

He is aware of Harley running towards him, of the electricity that pops in the air as Thor flies towards his friend, as he lands a blow that renders the warrior unconscious.

Thor offers him a hand, bloody but healing, and he takes it. “I need to tell you something, tell everyone something.”

Thor’s eyes are sad, but Loki shakes his head, “Trust me, Future?”

He gets a nod, and it’s all he needs.

Loki turns and faces the gathered crowd, energy radiating from him. It’s not like Gneip’s snowy swirl or Thor’s white electricity. His skin snaps back and forth between the blue of his birth and the silver-gold of his choosing. “I am Loki,” he says, chin high and voice clear, even as his redbluegreenstorm eyes leak and his nose and lips drip with the bluegreen blood. Harley steps to him, offers him an obsidian blade, and Loki uses it, then holds the boy’s hand.

“I am Son of Jotunheim and Son of Asgard. Heir to Laufey and promised of Odinson. I am small, Runtling, Little Flake. But I am not a coward. And I will not run from my destiny. Ymir gifted me a new life, a new home, and I will not see it ravaged by the petty feuds of those long since forgotten. You murdered my mother, with your pride and your expectations. You broke me as a boy. And you.” He points an accusing, bloody finger at Odin. “You bought me as a token, as a way to bury your shame. As a way to right the wrongs of your son, never imagining there might be so much more to his story.”

His chest stutters, but Thor smiles at him, blinding and infatuating. Gneip weeps, pride shining like Loki has never felt. Harley stands at his side, fingers curled through his masters. “You would see me lying in the shadows for the rest of my days. But I stand before you, kissed by Ymir’s blood, loved by Asgard’s Prince, Heir in my own right. And I am not ashamed of this thing that makes me different. Nor should my Future be, of me or his own past.” He holds his other hand out to Thor, palm bleeding, ready. “Are you?”

Thor places his own bloody hand over Loki’s. “I have never been ashamed of you, Jotun. Promised to me by the stars, gifted to me by the Princess, protected by Ymir and Gneip.” There’s a huff at their side and Thor laughs at that, a boisterous noise. “Protected and cherished by Harley, of Low Alley as well.”

Thor leans in to kiss him, and its static energy across his lips, electricity behind his eyes, and a million buried feelings bursting through him, sparking in the sky.


End file.
